styofa doing anything
we're not kids anymore.

ellievsbear

if i look back, i am lost
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
taylor price
No title available
macklin celebrini has autism

Kiana Khansmith
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
DEAR READER
d e v o n
occasionally subtle
dirt enthusiast
🪼
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Sade Olutola
Cosmic Funnies
cherry valley forever

★
seen from Nigeria

seen from Nigeria
seen from Nigeria
seen from Nigeria

seen from Nigeria
seen from Senegal
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye

seen from Belgium
@queerzombiehero
Caitlyn and Mizu Compare/Contrast
For some reason, I find that these two characters. Two different women from very different shows, have striking similarities to one another as well as differences.
Differences
Caitlyn comes from one of the wealthy families in her series; Mizu grew up broke poor
Caitlyn is driven towards helping others; Mizu is driven by revenge
Caitlyn's biracial heritage is never once brought up negatively, it's just a matter of fact; Mizu was viciously ostracized by many people because of her mixed heritage
Caitlyn was sheltered; Mizu was forced to live through and witness cruelty at a young age
Caitlyn is basically a saint; Mizu is an anti-hero at her best
Caitlyn's world is scifi/fantasy setting where the only bigotry is classism; Mizu lives in ordinary world (with the genre being of Western Samurai) and the accurate depictions of sexism, classism, and racism are all on full display
Caitlyn grew up with her parents in a loving, though controlling, household; Mizu doesn't know who her father is, had an abusive mother, and barely a place to call home
2. Similarities
Both are from one of the most popular adult-animated shows on Netflix, praised by critics and fans alike
Both are of East Asian descent - Caitlyn is half-Chinese; Mizu is half-Japanese
Skilled in respective traits - Caitlyn in marksmanship; Mizu in swordsmanship
They both have a connection to the color blue
Following from the previous point, both have blue eyes
They both have a strained relationship with their respective mothers - Caitlyn resents her mother meddling in her life as an adult; Mizu's "relationship" with her mother is just straight up abuse and neglect.
Both are biracial -> half Asian and half white
Both were ostracized -> Caitlyn stated she was a "misfit" herself and her Enforcer colleagues believes she's a rich, entitled brat; Mizu's ostracization is even more pronounced given how many people saw her biracialness as "demonic"
Have some sort of LGBT connection - Caitlyn is a lesbian and in an evolving romance with Vi; many LGBT fans have connected to Mizu because her struggles with her gender was similar to their own, and she's had palpable romantic tension with both a male and female character
Im rotatating Mizu in my head like this
“My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve.” (from Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. highly recommend it if you’re interested in having better dialogues and feeling less defensive in your life)
Something, something, something, we win.
Nimona + glowing eyes
Inspired by @crackinwise!
Many people are noting that Nimona isn't very subtle about its message and themes (cue the rainbow breathe weapon). And you know what, I think it's awesome. We're used to thinking subtlety is good, and even queer people frequently agree that queer stories should be "well made" and "not too preachy". That's not wrong in itself, but here's the thing: after spending millennia as "the love that dare not speak its name", we desperately need stuff that isn't subtle, but loudly, blatantly, obnoxiously queer... AND well made, because these are not opposites. Subtlety for its own sake becomes just another closet. After realizing it, I won't be comfortable writing queer subtext anymore -- not until I see queer text become commonplace.
Nimona (2023) + text posts
girls being girls
Caitvi Scenes: 23/? ↳ "Make her go away. Please. Send her on her way and… And you can have Powder back."
Arcane + TV Tropes Act 3 episode 8 "Oil and Water" (insp.)
Experiment
«Oil and water»
Katie Leung at 2023 Facts Gents Con
There has been news circling around about season 2 Arcane development as well as the Q&A recorded at the Facts Gents. Take some information posted with a grain of salt but I believe them to be plausible
Some questions for Arcane:
Q: In the voice acting were you able to be together in the studio for like scenes with interactions for example between Caitlyn and Vi
Katie: No... so I have not met Hailee who plays Vi. Normally when you do voice acting for something like Arcane, you are just in a box, so you have a producer on one side of the room with a glass pane between you And then it's just me and then the mic and the monitor with the lights or the animation and sometimes if Hailee's done her Vi lines before me then I'll get to hear the stuff that she's done and then I can respond to it. But most of the time there's a director on the screen who will just say the lines to me and then I have to respond and not that they are not great actors because I'm sure they could kind of give me a performance if they want it but I think they try and keep it neutral so then I'm responding to Vi saying something that might be potentially romantic and (the actor) will just be very dead and then I'll just have to kind of respond in the way that I would want to respond as caitlyn so it's funny that because when they put it together, it sounds like we're all in the same room because so much emotions that's carried forward in the voice acting but I've never met Ella or Hailee or anyone for that matter so it's great what they can do
you know what kills me? vi's bridge trauma.
the way she still hears the echoes of the battle. the way she averts her eyes and tries not to really look at anything when she's there. i would bet you a million bucks she still has nightmares about what happened, i would win the bet, and then i would use the money as tissues while i ugly cry over how much pain this poor kid carries with her
[slams fists on table] you KNOW WHAT CAITVI SCENE I HAVEN'T TALKED ABOUT YET
THIS ONE
i don't know HOW i managed to go this long without dumping my thoughts on this scene out all over your dashboards but it's happening today because i have so many of them. specifically i want to talk about the opposite ways they approach this moment and what that tells us about both of them as individuals. because they both kind of...switch into a totally different mode than the way they've been treating each other before this and i find that super fascinating.
the first thing that stood out to me about this scene (and probably to most of us, aside from how it made us scream internally) was the direct callback to two episodes earlier, how vi wouldn't say "thank you" to caitlyn for literally saving her life. but here, she does.
vi is finally letting herself say what she refused to say previously, when she had insisted on holding caitlyn at arm's length. she's letting herself be genuine, and a little raw. "thanks. for everything." for rescuing her from literal hell on earth, for saving her life, for dragging her injured ass through the undercity to keep her out of silco's reach. for showing her gentleness and compassion when nobody had done that for her in years. her words are so simple but they hold so much meaning.
and this would have been a big enough deal, but she also lets herself act--just a little bit!--on the romantic feelings she's developing for caitlyn.
even this small gesture of affection is like....massive considering the depth of vi's trust issues.
but before i jump into why i think vi is willing to express these things, i'm going to talk about caitlyn, because i think the reason behind her actions is the same.
caitlyn also does kind of a 180 in this scene with regards to how she acts towards vi. and i'm not even talking about the hug itself. see up until this point cait has ALWAYS been the one to approach this relationship with more openness. she's the first to attempt to be friendly, or helpful. she openly confronts vi about her lack of gratitude. she is willing to say out loud that they need to work with each other to develop trust if they expect anything positive to come out of their partnership.
but here? not a word. and i don't think that's because she has intentionally closed herself off from vi--that wouldn't make sense with the hug--but rather it seems to me like she's just at a total loss for words. she can't come up with a single thing to say, and i think it's killing her.
you can see her struggle in her eyes here and when vi touches her face, and even after they've parted when she's walking with ekko and still seemingly agonizing over her inability to express her feelings:
so the point: why do they act this way? why is it that, at this moment of separation, vi suddenly so forthcoming while caitlyn stays quiet? i think it's because they're saying goodbye. to put it simply, vi is used to losing people she cares about, and caitlyn is not.
now i don't want to downplay vi's feelings here. she obviously doesn't want to leave caitlyn, it obviously pains her. but this is what she knows. separation. isolation. i don't think she ever thought for one moment, either before she grew close to caitlyn or maybe especially afterward, that caitlyn would be a permanent part of her life. so this is the moment she's been expecting, even if it's very different from what she once assumed it would look like. she knows from experience that when you're about to lose someone, you have to say the things, do the things, that you'll regret later if you don't.
and most importantly? for vi, there is vulnerability in connection and safety in separation. relationships are painful. love is painful. so when she was with caitlyn and the end wasn't immediately in sight, she kept her walls up either through anger and hostility or later with softer, more affectionate teasing. but now she's walking away, and this thing she has with caitlyn will never have the chance to hurt more than this, so that means it's safe to really lower her walls and let caitlyn inside them, just for a moment.
for caitlyn, just the opposite. she is used to having things last. she feels most secure when she has someone to rely on, because she has never been without that in her life. she doesn't know how to say goodbye to someone she cares about because she's never had to before. losing vi is the thing that hurts the most.
jinx calls this a "goodbye hug", and for vi, that's accurate. but for caitlyn, i think this is an "i don't want to say goodbye" hug. cait doesn't often talk about her feelings but the few times she does, it comes across as spontaneous, almost accidental. ("what about us?" is the perfect example.) here, if caitlyn opened her mouth, i think the only thing that would come out is "don't go" and she knows she doesn't have any right to say that, not when vi is leaving to rescue her sister. so she says nothing, and instead just holds onto vi for as long as she can.
and if you look very closely at this tERRIBLE blurry screenshot...
you can see vi's hand on caitlyn's shoulder. she's the one who broke the embrace, otherwise cait might have held on forever.
tl;dr caitlyn is hopeless at saying goodbye and vi is far better at it than anyone should need to be. oil and water? maybe. but that didn't stop them from coming together in this beautiful moment which, i think, broke barriers between them that otherwise would have remained in place for a long time.